Working Papers
2011
July 1, 2011
Nonperforming Loans and Macrofinancial Vulnerabilities in Advanced Economies
Description: We analyze the link between nonperforming loans (NPL) and macroeconomic performance using two complementary approaches. First, we investigate the macroeconomic determinants of NPL in panel regressions and confirm that adverse macroeconomic developments are associated with rising NPL. Second, we investigate the feedback between NPL and its macroeconomic determinants in a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model. The impulse response functions (IRFs) attribute to NPL a central role in the linkages between credit market frictions and macrofinancial vulnerability. They suggest that a sharp increase in NPL triggers long-lived tailwinds that cripple macroeconomic performance from several fronts.
June 1, 2011
Towards a Best Practice of Modeling Unit of Measure and Related Statistical Metadata
Description: Data and metadata exchange between organizations requires a common language for describing structure and content of statistical data and metadata. The SDMX consortium develops content oriented guidelines (COG) recommending harmonized cross-domain concepts and terminology to increase the efficiency of (meta-) data exchange. A recent challenge is a recommended code list for the unit of measure. Based on examples from SDMX sponsor organizations this paper analyses the diversity of "unit of measure" as used in practice, including potential breakdowns and interdependencies of the respective meta-information that go beyond the current SDMX COG recommendations and possible value domains for the identified components.
June 1, 2011
Recent Developments in European Bank Competition
Description: This paper investigates the degree of bank competition in the euro area, the U.S. and U.K. before and after the recent financial crisis, and revisits the issue whether the introduction of EMU and the euro have had any impact on bank competition. The results suggest that the level of bank competition converged across euro area countries in the wake of the EMU. The recent global financial crisis led to a fall in competition in several countries and especially where large credit and housing booms had preceded the crisis..
June 1, 2011
Protectionist Responses to the Crisis: Damage Observed in Product-Level Trade
Description: This paper investigates how trade flows are being affected by new discriminatory measures implemented during the global financial crisis. We match data on behind-the-border measures (e.g., bailouts and subsidies) and border measures implemented through April 2010 to monthly HS 4-digit bilateral trade data. Our estimation strategy relies on a first-differenced gravity equation and time-varying fixed effects to disentangle the impact of new discriminatory measures. Trade in exporter-importer pairs subject to new measures decreased by 5 to 8 percent relative to trade in the same product among pairs not subject to new measures. These product-level results imply global trade declines at the aggregate level of about 0.2 percent, or $30-35 billion a year. These aggregate figures would be higher, if one third of measures had not been excluded due to incomplete data. The paper then goes on to dissect protectionism’s trade impact by disaggregating measures by type, advanced/developing countries, regions, sectors, and time. Behind-the-border measures are found to have been more harmful than border measures at the product level. Among border measures, impacts tend to be higher for less transparent measures. Advanced countries are found to be responsible for 2/3 of the trade decline due to crisis protectionism, but their exports also absorbed 2/3 of this decline. When breaking down measures in a time dimension, we find that those taken in the first nine months after the Lehman collapse were most harmful and likely continue to constitute a drag on trade.
June 1, 2011
Global and Regional Spillovers to GCC Equity Markets
Description: This paper analyzes the impact of global and regional spillovers to GCC equity markets. GCC equity markets were impacted by spillovers from U.S. equity markets despite varying degrees of foreign participation. Spillovers from regional equity markets were also important but the magnitude of the effects were on average smaller than that from mature markets. The results also illustrated episodes of contagion in particular during the recent global financial crisis. The findings suggest that given the degree of openness, and open capital accounts the financial channel is an important source through which volatility is transmitted. In this regard, GCC equity markets are not immune from global and regional financial shocks. These findings refute the notion of decoupling between the GCC equity and global equity markets.
June 1, 2011
Sovereign Spreads and Contagion Risks in Asia
Description: This paper explores how much of the movements in the sovereign spreads of Asian economies over the course of the global financial crisis has reflected shifts in (i) global risk aversion; (ii) country-specific risks, directly from worsening fundamentals, and indirectly from spillovers originating in other sovereigns and the uncertainty surrounding exchange rates. Earlier in the crisis, the increase in market-implied contagion led to higher Asian sovereign bond yield spreads over swaps. But, after the crisis, Asia’s sovereign spreads normalized, despite the debt crisis in the euro area, reflecting a fall in both exchange rate and spillover risks.
June 1, 2011
The Development of Local Debt Markets in Asia
Description: The paper makes an assessment of the progress made in developing local debt markets in emerging Asia. Market development has been limited by hurdles confronting borrowers and lenders, current and potential liquidity providers, and insufficient support from government policies and regulations. Besides fostering a credit culture to deepen local debt markets, the issue of critical size can be addressed through an integrated regional market for local currency bonds that provides greater scale, efficiency, and access. With rapid economic growth in Asia, a key challenge is to generate financial assets that can provide the underlying collateral for expanding fixed-income markets, and hence domestic and regional investment opportunities.
June 1, 2011
A New Action-Based Dataset of Fiscal Consolidation
Description: This paper presents a new dataset of fiscal consolidation for 17 OECD economies during 1978-2009. We focus on discretionary changes in taxes and government spending primarily motivated by a desire to reduce the budget deficit and not by a response to prospective economic conditions. To identify the motivation and budgetary impact of the fiscal policy changes, we examine contemporaneous policy documents, including Budgets, Budget Speeches, central bank reports, Convergence and Stability Programs submitted by the authorities to the European Commission, and IMF and OECD reports. The resulting series can be used to estimate the macroeconomic effects of fiscal consolidation.
June 1, 2011
Measuring Fiscal Decentralization: Exploring the IMF’s Databases
Description: Conventional wisdom postulates that there are benefits from decentralizing government finances but there is little empirical evidence about actual country practices. This paper presents data on fiscal decentralization for about 80 countries over a period of about 20 years (1990-2008) from the IMF’s Government Finance Statistics Yearbook (GFSY), the only global database with fiscal data for several levels of government. The data show that in many countries, revenue collection remains relatively more centralized than expenditures and that employment tends to be concentrated in lower levels of government. Except for transition economies, the levels of decentralization are relatively stable over the time period. The findings are shown by degree of economic development, constitutional power arrangements, and geographic area, broadly confirming key factors identified in the literature as determining the extent of fiscal decentralization.
June 1, 2011
Reforming the Tax System to Promote Environmental Objectives: An Application to Mauritius
Description: Fiscal instruments are potentially among the most effective, and cost-effective, options for addressing externalities related to poor air quality, urban road congestion, and greenhouse gases. This paper takes a case study, focused on Mauritius (a pioneer in the use of green taxes) to illustrate how existing taxes, especially on fuels and vehicles, could be reformed to better address these externalities. We discuss, in particular, an explicit carbon tax; a variety of options for reforming vehicle taxes to meet environmental, equity, and revenue objectives; and a progressive transition to usage-based vehicle taxes to address congestion